The First Real Date
by InfiniteUniverses
Summary: Jellal takes Erza on their first real date to go roller skating, except that Jellal doesn't know how to skate. It could have turned out worse, actually. Modern Fiary Tail AU.


According to Meredy, Disney World did not count as Jellal's first date with Erza. It was mostly because wherever they went together, they were followed by members of the guild. It was a family vacation for Fairy Tail, so you could never be truly alone. Jellal did try to take Erza out to dinner in Italy, or Epcot's version of Italy. It was nice until Natsu, Gray, Lucy and Happy joined the dinner and then they all got kicked out because Laxus and Mira came along to try to get them to leave.

They tried again when everyone went to Universal Studios, but everyone ate in the same restaurant as they did at the same time, and then everyone came along to see the Blue Man Group. The concert was fine up until the last number in which Natsu got into a fight with a sorority girl, which began a brawl between the sorority and Fairy Tail. They got kicked out of the concert at that point.

So Meredy decided that Jellal should take Erza out on a real date, just the two of them. She managed to get Laxus's phone number from Jellal's phone, and she schemed with Laxus and Mira to get Jellal and Erza on date. That was the reason why Jellal was standing in front of the roller skating rink on the edge of Magnolia. However, Jellal realized that this was a poorly executed plan because he was not included in the planning at all.

Mira and Laxus both knew that Erza enjoyed to skate, so they decided that it would be the perfect date for the two of them to go skating. Ice skating seemed like a sure-fire way to bring two people together in a Christmas-themed romance movie, so regular skating should work too. There were two problems with that, one: if Erza enjoyed skating, it was competitive, not for leisure, and two: Jellal had no idea how to skate.

Jellal spent most of his life in the Tower of Heaven, which isn't new news to anyone. That meant that Jellal lacked a lot of social skills like knowing how to roller skate and how to act like a normal person. In the seven years Jellal was free from the Tower, two which he spent in jail, and three on parole, he didn't learn how to skate because he was busy taking down dark guilds. So he felt that this was going to be a disaster.

"Hey Jellal," Erza greeted her long-time friend and now boyfriend.

"Oh, hey," Jellal replied, feeling really nervous because let's face it, he has the social skills of a brick.

"Are you ready to skate?" Erza asked Jellal, sporting her own in-line skates.

"I need to rent some," Jellal replied.

"Okay."

Jellal quickly rented skates and put them on beside Erza. The skates looked like they had been through the apocalypse and Jellal could smell them from just bending over to tie the laces. The orange wheels shined like a traffic cone though from the constant friction, and the sole of the shoe felt like a brick.

Once Jellal finished tying his skates, he noticed that Erza was waiting for him to join her so they could go and skate on the dim roller rink. A disco ball spun above the skaters and green, blue, and red light danced upon the rafters of the ceilings. The walls were carpeted to cushion skaters, but the floor was not. Jellal could see his butt being bruised in the future.

"Ready?" Erza asked Jellal.

"Yes," Jellal took a deep breath and stood up . . .

. . . And quickly fell back on his ass back onto the bench.

"Are you okay?" Erza quickly asked her boyfriend.

"Yeah," Jellal replied, realizing that this night was going to be filled with heavy self-embarrassment. He was already blushing from knowing that he would make a bigger fool of himself. "I've never been skating before."

"It's okay," Erza informed him. "A lot of people don't know how to skate. So don't worry. I'll teach you."

"Uh, okay," Jellal agreed, though he had heard from Natsu that Erza was an aggressive teacher. Erza held her hand out for Jellal to grab, and Erza helped Jellal up. Once on his feet, Jellal's feet seemed to slide out from beneath him, so he clung to Erza's arm to keep himself from falling over. Jellal would have thought that his weight would cause Erza to fall over, but she kept perfectly balanced. Erza then helped Jellal stand upright by using her free arm to pull him up by his shirt.

"There?" Erza asked Jellal.

"Uh, yeah," Jellal was standing without tripping or slipping, but he noticed that he was still clutching onto Erza's arm. Jellal quickly let go, which almost caused him to tip backwards, but Erza caught him by his hand, and pulled him back up. She continued to hold his hand, as a type of anchor so he wouldn't fall over.

"Have you ever discovered an ice pond and gone skating on it without having ice skates?" Erza asked Jellal, which caught him by surprise because it was such an odd question.

"Well, uhm, there was that time in the winter when Meredy and Ultear made me go on this ice pond and I kept on falling down," Jellal replied. "But I kinda got it by the end. I was still falling a lot, but at least I could glide across the ice without falling down until I crashed into something."

"Skating's like that," Erza answered. "Gliding along."

"Okay," Jellal began to understand, surprised that Erza wasn't being an aggressive teacher to him.

Erza let go of Jellal's hand and he managed to stay up on his own. Erza glided to a spot a few feet in front of Jellal, reminding Jellal of a parent who was trying to get their kid to take their first steps.

"Now try it," Erza instructed Jellal.

Jellal remembered his time playing on the ice, pushing off with one foot and gliding out on the other. Jellal recovered everything he knew and pushed off. He fell flat on his face.

"Are you okay?" Erza bent down to see if Jellal was alright, worry in her voice as she found his face planted into the smelly 80's carpet.

"This carpet smells like stale pizza," Jellal answered as he lifted his head, trying to add some humor into the situation. Erza smiled and held out her hand for Jellal again. Jellal took it and got up.

"You have no balance," Erza informed Jellal.

"I have wheels on my feet," Jellal replied. "And I'm nervous. That isn't a good combination."

Erza laughed and tried another tactic, "Just try and glide alongside me. I'll go slow, I promise. And I won't let go."

"Alright," Jellal agreed. He tried again and almost fell but Erza managed to catch him. He continued on, holding tightly onto Erza's hand, and slowly got the hold of skating. Erza lead him onto the floor and they held hands as they skated along like a true couple. Alright, yes, Rasputin was playing which wasn't the perfect couple song, and he was still a shitty skater, but it didn't matter to Jellal. He was happy that he was here with Erza and not worrying about the rest of the world.

"You've got the hang of it," Erza informed Jellal.

"You think?" Jellal asked.

"Yeah, try on your own," Erza replied and she let go of Jellal's hand. She skated backwards so she could watch Jellal try on his own.

Well, Jellal felt nervous all over again which lead to him falling. Jellal managed to hold himself for a few glides, but then a fast six year-old raced past him, causing him to loose balance. Jellal then fell forward but tumbled on the floor, crashing into the man right in front of him, and luckily not Erza. However, Erza stopped suddenly which caused the two horny sixteen year-olds who seemed to be following her all evening to crash into her. Jellal untangled himself from the man he crashed into just in time to see one of the sixteen year-olds that crashed into Erza began to drool because his face was right in front of her boobs.

"Get away from my girlfriend!" Jellal declared crawled over to Erza and pushed both of the boys off of her at once.

"Hey man, it was an accident," the drooling one said as he and his friend stood up.

"Yeah well," Jellal tried to stand up but he quickly lost balance and fell into the two boys.

"Gay," the second one declared after they all fell on the floor.

"I'm not good at skating!" Jellal tried to defend himself.

"Uhm sir," an employee came by. "I'm going to have to ask you to get off the floor. You're causing too many problems."

"Uh, okay," Jellal just realized the mess that he's made. "Sorry."

"You should really take classes," the employee just said before she skated away.

Jellal really had no idea what to say, but Erza helped him up and they went back to the skate rental so he could take his skates off.

"I'm sorry I ruined the evening," Jellal sighed, feeling extremely embarrassed that he caused a scene.

"Well, you didn't get us kicked out of a Disney restaurant," Erza tried to make Jellal feel better. "And you didn't get involved in the fight with sorority."

"Why were you fighting?" Jellal asked, realizing that he didn't have that question asked.

"I saw a couple girls make eyes at you," Erza replied. Jellal was thankful for his oblivious nature or else Erza would have given him a world of hurt if she caught him looking at one of the girls that were making eyes at him.

"So now what?" Jellal asked Erza, realizing that the only activity of the evening was skating and he had ruined that.

"There's a small arcade over there," Erza pointed out to the other side of the arena. "And there are two basketball games. Wanna play?"

"You're on," Jellal replied as he put his skates away.

The two then raced each other around the skating rink over the eighties carpet, and the date wasn't ruined.


End file.
